That Night
by Syjack
Summary: The night of Dumbledores death, after the Hospital wing scene. Remus chases after Tonks trying to further reiterate his point of why they can't be together. She's not hearing a word. They both stop to admire the Garygoyals outside Albus' office and stop.


**Disclaimer: I don't own it, naturally. J.K. Rowling does. But if I did, Tonks and Remus would have gotten together a long time ago. Remus also wouldn't have broken it of with Tonks. I swerve, the nerve of him. Anyway, to the story. Allso no profit or any copy right infrigymabob thing intended. So don't sue. **

"You just don't get it"

"Shut up" she walked farther along the corridorI shouldn't have said that, I shouldn't have said that. I just, just, Fleur shouldn't have said that, well she should have, she just, I just shouldn't have been there. He shouldn't have been there. We both should be somewhere else, together. No, can't think like that, keep walking forward, don't look at him, just don't look at him. Self centered prick. No, he's not self centered, he's… he is a prick though. Why, why did he have to. Stop thinking Tonks, stop thinking with your heart, grow numb, grow cold. He wouldn't want you too though. Yeah well he wouldn't want you at all anyway. No stop that. Too dangerous, like there aren't hundreds of werewolves in London, living with mates. I swear if he speaks one more word to me I will be a murderer. Sirius said that. She ran her fingers through her hair and turned a corner at a fast pace.

"I don't understand how with all the proof-" He followed quickly behind, arguing his point.

She started waving her hands in the air as she walked but kept her voice below shouting. "Proof, three stupid ridiculous lines you call-"

"You just don't get it" His voice was barely a whisper but held so much anger in it. Another corner.

"You know, you're right I just don't get it. I don't get how you can spend five great months with a girl and than decide it was all a mistake, then snog her senseless in her kitchen, then leave. No Remus, I don't get it."

Then she stopped outside a hidden room with gargoyles at the entrance. She studied the gargoyles, taking in every detail of the guarding faces. He stopped, noticed what she was staring at, and fell silent. Time passed, neither knew how much, they just continued to stare, and study. The gargoyles, the halls themselves, all quaked with the knowledge that something had changed, something terrible had happened. A boy had been bitten, and Albus Dumbledore, the greatest sorcerer in the world, was dead. Murdered by someone he trusted. It wasn't right, nothing about that night was. Nothing would ever be the same again. The world had changed tonight, and changed those in it forever. There was no going back from this, there was no light at the end of the tunnel, sure it was a war but something like that, could not happen. But it did. Not even in a thousands years did I think that there was something that could …. to Dumbledore. Not even if Dumbledore was hit by lightning, yellow, what were those candies he liked. Lemon Drops. Not everyone was hit, but everyone had been marked by what happened tonight. Even Remus. He watched over those who had been scathed, and those that needed it. Sure he had come out of the battle unscathed himself. But everybody needs someone. Someone to talk to, someone to share grief with, laugh with, pick you up when you fall, make your worries melt away. Who made him, of all people in the worlds, think that he was too old, too poor, too dangerous, too much of a hated despised and retched monster that he didn't deserve to be loved. Fenrir Grayback was who, one of them, one of the many.

She opened her mouth as if to talk. They were both still staring at the statues, neither had moved. Then she started to speak in a slow, quiet, calm, voice. "Remus," she sighed "I can't stop my head from spinning, I don't know whether to kill you, Greyback, round up a couple of death eaters or jump off the astronomy tower." Another pause and a deep breath "I can't think, and every time I try to feel something… I can't function properly as a witch or a human being. I can't change my hair, and I can't take this back and forth between you and me anymore. I can't do it, I'm sorry, I tried, but this is killing me, literally. This fight, all of them, keeps draining all of the tiny little bit of energy I still have, I'm running on empty, and I can't continue," She stared forward with a lifeless smile on her face "Not alone" He closed his eyes. This wasn't her. This couldn't be, and it isn't, this is some other creature residing in her. That creature had no life in it anymore, no happiness, no light. Light and life were Nymphadora Tonks. Down to her oddly little assorted knickknacks and colors of and in her apartment, down to her colorful language, underwear, and attitude. Down to her smile and love. Love, I don't, like hell. I love her. Even now when there is no life in her. She's still got more life than me. Some old man with nothing to offer her. Nothing but me, that's all she wants though. Sure she says that now, but in a few years. He looked at the weary face, lifeless eyes, and dead soul that was, that woman. She was laughing on her couch with blue hair, looking up at you that time you snogged her while that music she likes was playing. She talked of getting a cat, Lu-Lu. That's how she should be. Happy and full of life, of course it didn't help that he had just snogged her sensless, he smiled. Her terminology, I miss it dearly. She was that way because of you, you put that twinkle in her eye. He studied her face instead of the gargoyles, which still had some hypnotic effect on her. There was life. No, this isn't how it should be, she should be young and whole. His resolve was weakened.

"Nymphadora"

"Remus, Tonks, Tonks"

"Tonks, I love you, always will always have. And I'm the world's biggest git for not saying it sooner." He put one arm around her waist, and one on the space between her neck and her shoulder, and stared into those eyes. "Marry me"

She blinked … and stood there. He waited and may have squirmed a bit at her reaction thus far, but he still held her gaze with as much intensity as when he asked the question. She knit her brow. He backed off, looked at the ground, their feet, his feet, and removed his hands, backing away from her. She grabbed at his shirt front, kissing him with as much fury, anger, passion, love, hate, spite, benevolence, patience, energy, and life, everything that she had been going through all of it, his back hit the corridor wall, everything, ruff and raged, pulled apart and frustrated both mentally and sexually, everything she had kept inside for months, poured out into him, that kiss. When she pulled back and he regained consciousness, with his hair all floppy and messed around, hanging down in his eyes, with that dazed look on his face that would make any school girl swoon. He smiled.

"So, I'll take that as a yes." She smiled, "Oh and by the way, it looks like your back to your pink old self Tonks"

"It's Nymphadora, Remus" he stood with a comical expression on his face.

"I'm allowed to call you Nymphadora" he smiled and his eyes lit up in their old maurader way.

"You can call me anything you like if you kiss me again" and so he did.


End file.
